I sat there in surprise for a minute before I cut him off. “Don’t be sorry!” I blurted out. “You had no idea what I was doing in there. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I would have gotten up eventually. I was fine,” I told him, but we both knew I hadn’t been.

“Didn’t think Dragon was one of those. I’ve seen quite a lot of them, in and out of the club. Didn’t think Dragon was like that,” he told me as he finished off his food.

“He’s not. He’s…well, you heard the story earlier, right? I mean…I’m pissed as hell, but God!” I ran my hands through my messy hair. “I was going to tell him. I was. I just hadn’t figured out how to do it yet, you know? And then, the way he found out was just…it was so fucked-up. It was out of control. I should have told him before.”

“When should you have told him exactly? When your ex was showing up at the club with his fucking henchmen? Maybe when Trix was sitting with you two, eating her dinner? How about during sex—that sound like a good time to tell him? Seems to me you hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet,” he told me, sounding far more practical and clearheaded than anyone I’d talked to that day.

I stood up to go inside. “How’d you get so smart?” I asked him with a crooked smile on my face.

“Probably Yale,” he answered completely serious.

“No shit?” I asked incredulously.

He didn’t answer me, so I headed toward the front door. Right before I walked inside, I heard him say, “No shit,” under his breath.

What the hell was some kid who’d gone to Yale doing becoming a recruit for a motorcycle club in Eugene, Oregon? I asked myself this over and over again as I got into bed. It gave me something else to focus on besides my life that was currently swirling down the drain. Casper was interesting. I noticed that he was well-spoken from the first time we’d met. He also didn’t seem to have the same chip on his shoulder as the other recruits I’d seen over the years. I couldn’t figure out why he’d chosen this life when he was obviously really fucking smart. Yale. Holy hell, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. Sure, I’d gotten into the University of Oregon with pretty good grades and average test scores, but Yale was a horse of a different color. I thought about Casper and all the different reasons he could have dropped out of school until I drifted off into a restless sleep.

I woke later that night to the covers being pulled down on the side of the bed.

Dragon was back.

I lay there, still as a statue, as he climbed in beside me just inches away. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to pretend I was sleeping and roll over close to him or drag my ass out of bed and onto the couch. Both sounded equally as good, so instead, I just stayed where I was at, waiting.

I didn’t have to wait long before he scooted toward me and burrowed down to lay his head just below my breasts, wrapping his arms around my waist. He didn’t do anything else. He didn’t try to speak; his hands didn’t roam. He just lay there, snuggled into me, like he couldn’t get close enough.

I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands. They had been up under my head when he came in, but when I’d been rolled to my back, they sort of floundered in the air above him. Should I put my hands on his shoulders? Should I refuse to touch him and keep them up by my head? His body started to shudder, and my answer was made. I pulled the tie from his hair and ran my fingers through it softly, quietly comforting both him and me. God, we were a fucked-up mess. I had no idea where we would go from here.

“I fucked up, Brenna. Shouldn’t have hit you,” he told my stomach.

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

The night was stifling around us, and I was afraid if I raised my voice, the spell would be broken, and we’d be at each other’s throats again.

“Fucked-up. I’m so fucked-up,” he told me, and his body relaxed into sleep, never moving from mine.

“Me, too,” I told him, but he didn’t hear me.

When I woke up the next morning, Dragon was gone. His side of the bed was still warm, so he had to have just left, but I was in no mood to follow him. The last couple of days had made me leery of getting out of bed at all, but I eventually got up and gathered my clothes and a towel, so I could take a quick shower. I hadn’t showered in the mess that I liked to think of as the day of reckoning, so I was getting pretty rank. I needed some shampoo and scented body wash, STAT.

When I made my way into the hallway, I could hear Dragon and Pop talking in low voices in the kitchen, and I paused outside the bathroom door, trying to hear what they were saying.

“You don’t have to do it this way, son. Duncan says he can get custody with the photos I took of Brenna when she got here. No need for you to get involved.” My pop’s voice was compelling, but Dragon brushed him off.

“Getting my name on that birth certificate one way or another. Not arguin’ about this shit anymore. Have him send the papers.”

“Yeah, I hear ya. But—”

Pop’s voice cut off when I leaned against the bathroom door, and it banged open. I’d thought it was closed when I leaned against it, and after the loud noise, I scrambled inside before they could see me. I didn’t know what was going on with Pop, but that was the second time I’d heard him trying to talk Dragon out of getting the DNA testing done. I decided I’d think about it later as I spun around and locked the door. It wouldn’t keep Dragon out if he really wanted in, but I doubted he would come barging in anyway. If his absence in bed that morning was any indication, he was as leery of me as I was of him.